---
title: "You can never be too sure," said the Kid, when he saw the Wolf maki… — The Aesop for Children · tree and pragmatics
description: "You can never be too sure," said the Kid, when he saw the Wolf making off to the woods. Who acts: You, Kid, Wolf. A sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf, the Kid, and the Goat, with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# The Aesop for Children, The Wolf, the Kid, and the Goat, sentence 10

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"You can never be too sure," said the Kid, when he saw the Wolf making off to the woods.

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**Who acts:** You, Kid, Wolf · **What happens:** not be, say, see, make off · **To what, where:** Wolf · **Speech:** someone speaks here

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This is a sentence of «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, The Wolf, the Kid, and the Goat. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (You, Kid, Wolf), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Parsed by Mova, not checked by a teacher.** This tree is Mova's own parse (the `en` model, on the CPU, when the site is built); it may be wrong.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg19994:137:10
# text = "You can never be too sure," said the Kid, when he saw the Wolf making off to the woods.
1	"	"	PUNCT	``	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
2	You	you	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Person=2|PronType=Prs	7	nsubj	_	_
3	can	can	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	7	aux	_	_
4	never	never	ADV	RB	PronType=Neg	7	advmod	_	_
5	be	be	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	7	cop	_	_
6	too	too	ADV	RB	_	7	advmod	_	_
7	sure	sure	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	SpaceAfter=No
8	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	7	punct	_	SpaceAfter=No
9	"	"	PUNCT	''	_	7	punct	_	_
10	said	say	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	ccomp	_	_
11	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	12	det	_	_
12	Kid	kid	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	nsubj	_	SpaceAfter=No
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
14	when	when	ADV	WRB	PronType=Int	16	advmod	_	_
15	he	he	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Masc|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	16	nsubj	_	_
16	saw	see	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	7	conj	_	_
17	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	18	det	_	_
18	Wolf	Wolf	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	obj	_	_
19	making	make	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	16	xcomp	_	_
20	off	off	ADP	RP	_	19	compound:prt	_	_
21	to	to	ADP	IN	_	23	case	_	_
22	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	23	det	_	_
23	woods	wood	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl	_	SpaceAfter=No
24	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	7	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **not** **is** *in a quote* | can | You |  |  |  |  | sure *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **say** *speech: assert* | past | the Kid |  |  |  |  |  | vn say-37.7-1-1 «NP V that S»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **see** | past | Wolf | the Wolf |  |  |  |  | tree rules |
| 4 | **make off** | gerund | the Wolf *not said here* |  |  |  |  | to the woods | vn build-26.1-1 «NP.asset V NP»: agent=Asset |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «The Aesop for Children» by Aesop, Project Gutenberg book 19994 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** Mova's own parse, Elamur Cosmic License. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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